Famba kahle Mun’wanati

As you read this, a week has passed since Minister of Public Service and Administration Collins Chabane died just a month shy of his 55th birthday. His early death, in a horrific accident in which both speed and alcohol are said to have been factors, robbed South Africa of a rare political talent.

“We know him to have been a quiet strategist in an occupation often given to populism and deafening rhetoric,” said Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa at Chabane’s memorial this past week. The quiet revolutionary was highly impactful and well loved.

A fractious body of politicians put aside differences to mourn him this past week.

A guerrilla in the fight against apartheid, Chabane later entered government to distinguish himself again and again at various levels of government.

He established the department of performance monitoring and evaluation, and its work has been unheralded. We pause a moment now to note that, with his team, Chabane developed an effective system that diagnosed risk quickly and worked out who was performing and who not in the national Cabinet.

In this, he was a superadministrator.

From that role, Chabane moved to the department of public service and administration, the state’s toughest job. Chabane was a man of many talents. He played a mean harmonica and mbira. He was also a community activist, and a loving father and husband.

City Press flies its flag at half-mast for a minister who always made time for us.

Famba kahle, Mun’wanati

Join the conversation!

24.com encourages commentary submitted via MyNews24. Contributions of 200 words or more will be considered for publication.

We reserve editorial discretion to decide what will be published. Read our comments policy for guidelines on contributions.

24.com publishes all comments posted on articles provided that they adhere to our Comments Policy. Should you wish to report a comment for editorial review, please do so by clicking the 'Report Comment' button to the right of each comment.

Tell us a bit about yourself:

Saving your profile

Settings

News24 allows you to edit the display of certain components based on a location.
If you wish to personalise the page based on your preferences, please select a
location for each component and click "Submit" in order for the changes to
take affect.

Your Location*

Weather*

Always remember my setting

Saving your settings

Facebook Sign-In

Hi News addict,

Join the News24 Community to be involved in breaking the news.

Log in with Facebook to comment and personalise news, weather and listings.